Fingerstick monitoring in type 2 diabetes is only so useful
“Fingerstick monitoring for type 2 diabetes is only so useful,” Dr. Argento said in an interview.
“It’s difficult to get people to monitor in a meaningful way.” If patients perform them only in the morning or at other sporadic times of the day, he said, “Then you get a one-dimensional picture ... and they don’t know what to do with the information anyway, so they stop doing it.”
In contrast, with SugarBEAT and BEATDiabetes, “I think it does address a need that fingerstick monitoring doesn’t.”
Dr. Argento did express a few caveats about the device, however. For one, it still requires one fingerstick a day for calibration. “If people don’t like needles, that might be a disincentive.”
Also, despite the apparently comparable mean absolute relative difference with that of conventional CGMs, that measure can still “hide” values that may be consistently either above or below target range.
“MARD is like A1c in that it’s useful but limited. ... It doesn’t tell you about variability or systemic bias,” he said.
Dr. Argento also said that he’d like to see data on the lag time between the interstitial fluid and blood glucose measures with this noninvasive method as compared with that of a subcutaneous catheter.
However, he acknowledged that these potentials for error would be less important for patients with type 2 diabetes who aren’t generally taking medications that increase their risk for hypoglycemia.
In all, he said, “stay tuned. I think this is part of a movement going away from point-in-time to looking at trends and wearables and data to enrich decision-making…There are still some unanswered questions I have but I think they’re onto a concept that’s useful for a broader population.”
Dr. Chowdhury is an employee of Neumara. Dr. Argento consults for Senseonics and Dexcom, and is also a speaker for Dexcom.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.